Numeric and graphic risk information processing of high and low numerates in the intuitive and deliberative decision modes: An eye-tracker study
Journal Title: Judgment and Decision Making - Year 2014, Vol 9, Issue 5
Abstract
The influence of numeracy on information processing of two risk communication formats (percentage and pictograph) was examined using an eye tracker. A sample from the general population (N = 159) was used. In intuitive and deliberative decision conditions, the participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario presenting a test result. The participants indicated their feelings and their perceived risk, evoked by a 17% risk level. In the intuitive decision condition, a significant correlation (r = .30) between numeracy and the order of information processing was found: the higher the numeracy, the earlier the processing of the percentage, and the lower the numeracy, the earlier the processing of the pictograph. This intuitive, initial focus on a format prevailed over the first half of the intuitive decision-making process. In the deliberative decision condition, the correlation between numeracy and order of information processing was not significant. In both decision conditions, high and low numerates processed pictograph and percentage formats with similar depths and derived similar meanings from them in terms of feelings and perceived risk. In both conditions numeracy had no effects on the degree of attention on the percentage or the pictograph (number of fixations on formats and transitions between them). The results suggest that pictographs attract low numerates’ attention, and percentages attract high numerates’ attention in the first, intuitive, phase of numeric information processing. Pictographs thus ensure low numerates’ further elaboration on numeric risk information, which is an important precondition of risk understanding and decision making.
Authors and Affiliations
Carmen Keller, Christina Kreuzmair, Rebecca Leins-Hess and Michael Siegrist
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP678139
- DOI -
- Views 144
- Downloads 0
Challenging some common beliefs: Empirical work within the adaptive toolbox metaphor
The authors review their own empirical work inspired by the adaptive toolbox metaphor. The review examines factors influencing strategy selection and execution in multi-attribute inference tasks (e.g., information costs,...
Political double standards in reliance on moral foundations
Prior research using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) has established that political ideology is associated with self-reported reliance on specific moral foundations in moral judgments of acts. MFQ items do not...
Cognitive abilities and superior decision making under risk: A protocol analysis and process model evaluation
Individual differences in cognitive abilities and skills can predict normatively superior and logically consistent judgments and decisions. The current experiment investigates the processes that mediate individual differ...
Are complex decisions better left to the unconscious? Further failed replications of the deliberation-without-attention effect
The deliberation-without-attention effect occurs when better decisions are made when people experience a period of distraction before a decision than when they make decisions immediately or when they spend time reflectin...
Representations of moral violations: Category members and associated features
I present a novel way to conceptualize Turiel and colleagues’ Social Domain Theory (SDT), and Haidt and colleagues’ Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), as theories of how concepts of moral violations are mentally represented...